OH, THE STORIES THAT MAN COULD TELL!

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

GLENDALE - It was the last campfire story of a legendary career, and Cy Battison was going to make it his best.

For 53 summers as camp director of the Glendale YMCA's Camp Fox program, he's been sitting around this campfire on Catalina Island grabbing the hearts and minds of thousands of young boys hanging on his every word - sometimes scared, sometimes laughing, often fighting back tears.

They all would take Cy's campfire story to bed with them later and think about it until sleep finally came, so it had to be good.

There was only one hard and fast rule to Cy's stories. They had to mean something - had to have a moral or lesson to them that would help these young boys grow into good men.

So in the last campfire story of his career, with hundreds of captivating stories to draw from, Cy Battison reached back for a dog called Calaban.

It is the story of a farmer who rescues a dog that is being abused, and the two form a close friendship. But the farmer gets married and begins to give more attention to his wife, and then to their baby. The farmer's wife thinks the dog is jealous of the baby.

One night, she has to leave the house to help a neighbor having an emergency. She puts Calaban in another room, and leaves the baby in his crib.

On her way back from the emergency, she meets her husband, and when they arrive home they find the front door open, and know something is wrong.

``The farmer goes inside the quiet house, gets his gun, and begins to walk down the hallway to the baby's room,'' Cy says.

``Calaban comes slowly walking out of the room covered in blood. The farmer thinks he's killed the baby, and shoots him. Then he hears the baby cry.

``He runs into the room to find the baby cuddled up in its crib, and a dead wolf a few feet away. `What have I done?' the farmer cries. `Calaban saved my boy's life, and I've killed him. Why didn't I think before I acted?' ''

It is here that Cy looks around the campfire into the watery eyes of thousands of boys over the years who would take this story to bed with them, and hopefully learn something from it.

Think before you act, he tells them.

``It's an amazing thing to see,'' says Craig Yaussi, the Glendale Y's Camp Fox program director, who calls Cy his mentor.

``I've talked to thousands of kids over the years, and asked them what they remember most from Camp Fox, and they all say Cy's campfire stories,'' he said.

Don Galleher, who has worked as a Camp Fox director for 35 years with Cy, says his friend is a master story teller, but he's even better one on one with campers.

``I've watched Cy sit in front of that director's cabin, and talk to kids individually for hours - helping them work through problems and find goals,'' Galleher said.

``He shakes every hand, knows every boy's name. For one week every summer, Cy becomes a father to them.''

But he's turning 81 this July, and he figures it's time to finally say goodbye to Camp Fox and his boys, Cy says Friday from his Woodland Hills home.

He has mixed feelings about retiring because he knows what those campfire stories and one-on-one talks have meant to a lot of these kids.

He's had a big hand in helping shape young boys into good men over the past 53 summers, and the proof is in the letters they write him after they get home from camp.

His last was from a 14-year-old boy who had heard that Cy wasn't coming back to Camp Fox this summer, and how it wouldn't be the same.

``I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me,'' the boy starts. ``I wait 51 weeks a year for that one week of camp. You've put hope in the hearts of a lot of kids.''

Cy has trouble reading these letters without tearing up a little himself, he admits. He's going to miss telling those campfire stories, and watching the morals they teach slowly sink in.

He and his wife, Marion, were in a hotel in Victoria, Canada, recently when a man walked across the dining room, and asked him if his name was Cy.

He remembered those Camp Fox campfire stories, the man said, and just wanted to thank him.

``It happens in malls, the supermarket, movies, restaurants, just about everywhere we go together,'' Marion says. ``A man will walk up to my husband and say, 'You're Cy from Camp Fox, aren't you?' Then he'll thank him.''

Some of them will be the kids of kids he had in camp back in the '50s and '60s, Cy says. Now, that makes you feel old, he laughs.

``I think the kids of the '50s had more respect for adults and property than kids today,'' Cy says. ``It takes a lot more to get their respect now, but underneath all that bravado and nonsense, they're good kids.

``That's been our job at Camp Fox, to make them look at themselves differently, help them become better kids, and set goals,'' Cy said.

It starts around a campfire on a summer's night with a wise man telling a group of wide-eyed boys about a dog named Calaban.

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After 53 summers filled with boys, Cy Battison has decided he'll tell no more stories around the campfire at Camp Fox on Catalina Island.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer